


Haunted Honey and Stolen Trees

by GhostGreenSigns



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 10:44:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9068215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostGreenSigns/pseuds/GhostGreenSigns
Summary: Alex is surprised when Strand makes an appearance at the PNWS holiday party.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Wonderful_Jinx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Wonderful_Jinx/gifts).



The PNWS studio has surprisingly not blown a fuse yet. Strands of lights are hung from every available surface, glittering and reflecting on the windows. There is a tree in one corner, decorated to the brim. Alex walks over to it, inspecting the ornaments that the interns made. She touches one before really taking a good look at it, recoiling when she realizes that it’s an upside down face. Her heart rate spikes and the blinking lights burn her eyes. She wishes that she could be normal, now more than ever. Can’t she just enjoy the holidays like everyone else? Doesn’t she deserve that? Instead, she is sleeping less than ever because of nightmares that leave her soaked in sweat. Her throat is so dry that the thought of eating makes her cringe. The festive lights seem too bright, too artificial and they make her tired eyes ache. 

Not to mention the fact that there are other thoughts that creep in. When she isn’t seeing nightmare images, she’s imagining Strand and Coralee. She imagines them kissing, soft and lovingly or hard and full of passion. She isn’t sure which type hurts her worse. She imagines them falling into bed together, a tangle of limbs and hair,  
glasses falling forgotten. She imagines-

“I thought that the point of a party was to socialize.” Strand’s voice interrupts her thoughts, making her jump. He narrows his eyes. “I’m sorry, did I scare you? Are you too hot? You’re flushed, have you been drinking?”

“No, I’m not, you didn’t. You’re here?”

He looks around as if he can’t quite believe it himself. The interns are staring at him, huddled together around the drink station. Nic hasn’t noticed, too engrossed in whatever Geoff is telling him that involves an awful lot of hand movements. 

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” He says.

Alex smiles. “Really? You were sitting at home thinking that an office party at the studio seemed preferable?”

“To my night? Yes.”

“Oh.”

“Interesting sweater.”

Alex smiles, opening her arms to show her ugly sweater off. “Don’t be jealous. I’m sure that I could get you one too.”

“That’s ok, I wouldn’t want to steal your spotlight.”

“I actually have a present for you.”

“You do?”

Alex nods, crooking a finger and beckoning him to follow. She leads him from the noise and prying eyes into the more subdued line of offices.  
He stands a bit awkwardly in front of her whiteboard, watching as she digs around in her desk. She wishes he looked more relaxed, that he’d loosen his tie or sit down. His height strikes her, as if she’s just remembered how tall he is. She remembers finding it a bit imposing at first. Now, images of the enigmatic and professional Dr. Strand compete with images of Ritchie. She finds that one doesn’t hurt her heart as much as the other and focuses back to the man himself. His sleeves are rolled up in a way that makes her a bit hot under her sweater and he has just a touch of stubble today. Alex pulls out a brightly wrapped gift and hands it to him. “It’s nothing much, just something that made me think of you.” 

He raises an eyebrow and opens it. “Honey?”

“You use it in your tea, right?” 

“I do. On occasion”

“Plus, It’s not just any honey.” 

“No?”

“It’s haunted.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s honey harvested from a cemetery.”

He laughs and Alex finds that she missed that sound more than she’d let herself admit. She wants to mention it, the tension, Coralee, the disturbing discoveries about his father and his past. She wants to tell him about her worsening Insomnia, her almost constant panic. Instead, she lets it hang in the back of her mind, unsaid. Their friendship is fragile and she’ll be damned if she breaks it tonight. 

“Thank you.” His arms wrap around her and she breathes him in. “This has to be the sweetest haunted thing anyone has ever given me.”

She pulls back and blinks up at him. “Did you just intentionally make a pun?”

A smile pulls at the corner of his mouth.

“I never took you for the kind of man to make a dad joke.”

“A dad joke?”

“Never mind.” She laughs.

He inspects the honey. “When she was little, Charlie used to love the cold. She’d get bundled up and spend hours outside. I don’t know what her favorite season is now.”

She can feel the darkness creeping back in, slipping underneath her office door. She isn’t going to give up that easily tonight. “Do you have a tree?”

“No. Ruby usually puts a small one up in the offices but with my work keeping me here for the holidays, I didn’t see the need.”

“Your own personal enjoyment didn’t factor in?”

She might be imagining it, but she thinks his eyes flicker to her mouth for just a second. “No,” he answers. “Don’t you want to rejoin the party?”

She can hear the music and her coworkers laughing. “Not really.”

“I’m not keeping you?”

“Of course not.”

“The party seems…interesting.”

She laughs. “You’re a terrible liar.” 

“So, how do you propose we celebrate the holiday, then?”

She can think of a few ways. Ways that involve less clothing or maybe some movies and quiet or something cliché like ice skating or-  
“Follow my lead.”

They sneak out of her office and make their way into a stairwell. “The elevators are too close to the party, someone will see us.” She says.

“See us doing what?”

She smiles at the hitch in his voice. “Escaping.”

He follows her down the stairs and out into the cold air. She breathes in deeply, feeling free and calm for the first time that night. 

“Step two?” Strand asks, looking back as if to make sure they weren’t followed.

“We get you a tree.”

***

Christmas music plays softly on the radio as they zip down the wet roads back to his house. The wind from the slightly open windows fills the air with a beautiful white noise that almost lets Alex believe that she could be lulled to sleep with the scent of Dr. Strand and the warmth from the heat. 

“Have you done this before?”

“My parents told me a story about how they had a surprise visit from my dad’s parents one year and that they had to improvise by buying a display tree from a department store. This seemed similar enough.”

“This particular tree is giant.” 

Alex smiles. Yes, the tree currently strapped to the top of his roof is a bit bigger than it had looked in the lobby of her building and yes, technically she had stolen it, but ultimately she was choosing to see herself as the Robin Hood of Christmas instead of a Grinch. 

“You needed a tree and I delivered.”

She thinks he chuckles but it could just be the wind. 

“I didn’t even think to ask, is…” She can’t think of how to word the next part of her question, suddenly. Her stomach flips and she fights back the darkness again. “Anyone home?”

“No.” End of discussion. Period. Final word.

Ok then.

So what? Coralee just comes in and saves the day before disappearing again? Would he have wanted her to stay? Would he have put up a tree if she had?

He turns up the music but she can tell that he’s started to hum. “He’ll ask ‘are you married, we’ll say no man. But you can do the job when you’re in town,’” the radio says. 

“You don’t leave any lights on in your house?” She says as they pull up.

“Why would I?”

“I just thought everyone did.”

“You do?”

“I don’t want to come home to a pitch-black apartment.”

There’s a pause. “I can understand that.” He says.

They wrestle with the tree and manage to not-so-gracefully remove it from the car and get it inside. They stand it up in the living room and step back to look at it.

“I don’t think I have any lights. Or ornaments.”

“Do you have paper?”

And so he watches her as she makes snowflakes from legal pads and paper chains from white paper. He leaves the room to put on some Christmas music.  
“Would you like some tea?” He calls out. 

“If you’re making some then sure.”

There’s a creeping voice in the back of her mind, where she’s been banishing all manner of disturbing things. It’s telling her that she’s getting too cozy. She’s letting her chest fill up with that warm feeling of being taken care of and having someone to take care of. She’s letting herself feel too safe, she’s being too open and transparent. It’s telling her that the darkness will come for her when she closes her eyes no matter where she sleeps or whom she sleeps next to. 

She jumps when he sits the tea in front of her.

“Are you alright?” He asks, sitting on the floor next to her.

“Yeah.”

“It’s make believe.”

She knows what he means but the voice has spent so much time telling her it isn’t. She brought it on. It’s her fault. “I know.”

“I promise you.”

She nods and he takes the scissors out of her hands and tugs her close. Their knees are pressed together and she can’t quite look at him. “I promise you that none of it is real. I promise that there is no apocalypse. I promise you that the only world-ending event that will happen is that one day a long time from now, the sun will burn our planet up.” 

Alex laughs.

“I promise that even if it were real, I’d make sure you were safe.”

He lets go of her hand and reaches for his mug. She wants to tell him that she’ll try to keep him safe too. From regrettably attractive international spies and missing wives, from the apocalypse or mental patients, from cult members and bad memories. 

“Did you know that the tradition of bringing trees inside was a pagan idea thought to keep the gods warm during the cold months?” He asks, looking up at the tree.

If the apocalypse is coming, if the cult is coming, if shadow people and demons are coming, then she better live while she can. She reaches out for his impeccably straight tie and tugs it so that his face is as close to hers as she dares. He stares at her and with each passing moment she feels more deeply that she’s misread the moment. But then he kisses her, moving a hand to the back of her neck and managing to be both gentle and eager at the same time. She can taste the haunted honey on his lips and when she gets to taste it on his tongue, he leans forward further, almost completely covering her body with his own. 

***

They end up on the couch, mugs of tea warming their hands, watching old Christmas movies instead of ominous tapes. The tree is trimmed with snowflakes cut with hands shaky from lack of sleep but Strand insists that he will save them for the following year regardless.  
As she falls asleep, nestled into his side, she feels him press a kiss to her hand like a protection charm, keeping the darkness away.


End file.
